Court Reporter

A Sutton driver who got drunk after a six-month break from booze when his girlfriend revealed she was seeing someone else was more than three times over the limit, a court heard.

Joseph Marshall’s Ford transit van was seen exceeding the 30mph limit, on Low Moor Road, Kirkby, at 10.30pm, on February 25.

A test revealed he had 112 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres when the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

Marshall, 22, of The Twitchell, admitted driving with excess alcohol when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court, on Friday.

Donna Pursglove, mitigating, said that Marshall had stopped drinking alcohol for six months after a conviction last year.

“He had been a man who went out binge drinking,” she said. “He threw himself into his work for his father in the waste disposal business.

“He says he would work 25 hours a day if he could.

“He met friends, and they were making arrangements to go Benidorm for a long weekend.”

He was in the pub when his girlfriend called to say she had been in a relationship with someone else, the court heard.

“He became quite distraught about this and consumed a significant quantity of alcohol. And then, rather than get a taxi, he fetched his vehicle,” added Ms Pursglove.

“He made a significant error of judgment because of the circumstances he found himself in.”

She said the inevitable ban would have a “massive impact” on his father, who had already invested £20,000 in a new business for Marshall to run.

Probation officer Sarah Todd said Marshall felt “extremely let down by himself” and had only finished his previous community order on February 9, which “he said had shocked him into getting his life back on track.”